Ive owned 2 SU-31's and they are as good as any other arf.
Capabilities are unlimted in flying this plane.

I'm going to help a buddy repair his Phoenix Funstar. One hard landing and the fuselage snapped in half behind the wing.
It's definitely not as solid as my Pheonix Tucano, which was as good as my World Models Super Sports .40
A pity really as it flew o.k.

Hi ! I am from India, I have just finished putting togather Phoenix Sukhoi 120 with Zenoah G26 Engine.

I would like to read your review before I take my first flight.

Thanks !

I'll chime in for the Decathlon! Awesome quality, excellent flying characteristics. Will knife edge for eternity and looks great!

Excuse the poor pic, taken with cellphone!

I just baught, flew, and crashed my Pheonix Dolpnin. Great plane to fly. Perfect 2nd plane or high wing trainer. The only problem I had with it was the engine mount, I wish it were adjustabel, and the pilot figure looked like a whacked out lumber jack. The crash (a.k.a. hard landing) was due only to a reciever and poor pilot judgement. All-in-all, it was a great plane, gret packing, and clear instructions. I am in the process of reapiring the forward turtledeck just rear of the cockpit. I am flying it with an OS .46AX and it does great! Can't wait to get her back up!

Shane

....I menat low-wing trainer.... Darn beer messing with the keyboard....

Check that again...I think you meant Saki...

I have just finished a Phoenix Rainbow. O.K. it's an Electric powered model, but it went together without any fuss. Quality is as good as the wonderful Tucano which you guys in the US are now able to get a hold of. (I have one , now 15 months old and a lovely model to build and fly- also looks good.)
Overall, Phoenix are one of the best ARF kit manufacturers around. No real dogs and quality, i.e glued joints, control horns, fibreglass cowels, wrinkle free covering etc, is very good. Weaknesses? A few small ones. Mainly lumpy wheels and pushrod dowels being too flexible. Minor issues really. Buy their kits with confidence.

Had a Sonic HW and lost it due to pilot error on flight no 97 - inverted, low & at dusk. Rest is history. Bought another one, built the wing straight, no dihedral makes for fun moves. Has done 9 flights to date.

The spinner supplied is bad and so is the wheel rims, unless you can land real softly. Box says all plywood and balsa construction but that's a lie. The Vietnamese use Botok instead of balsa (except where your eye could see., e.g. servo area). This result in the wood cracking up considerably more then balsa during a crash. Covering starts fading and coming loose at the edges. Otherwise it's not too bad a plane.

I have completed 15 flights on my Phoenix Sukhoi 120 with G26 engine, Its an excellent flyer and does most of the manouvers (Except Hover) though not as well as EDGE or EXTRA.

The AUW (Dry) is 6Kgs. (13.3 lbs)

Gives fairly good vertical performance (Though not un-limited), currently I am using APC 16X8 which spins at 8600 RPM.

For a 15 minute flight, fuel consumption is only 300cc of Gas (Very Cheap).

I just purchased a Phoenix Tucano 40 and the finish and build are quite impressive. DOES ANYONE KNOW ABOUT THIS PART CALLED A DOMINO in the manual??? can it be trusted in the elevator pushrods???? Has anyone used anything like this?

I had an SU-31. The instructions included a section on fitting the nose leg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Also, they stressed the importance of a correct C of G several times but did not say where it should be.
No, I will not be buying another Phoenix kit.

I built and flew the SeaBee ARF, and I believe it's the most fun you can legally have for $99.99!

Can any one please tell me if Pheonix Models have a website????????

I find it very useful to look at these first eg World Models, Seagull etc to look at how the build instructions are done. This should give some indication of what you are letting yourself in for!!

Any replies really welcome.TA

Cymaz

I have been told that Phoenix, Black Horse and Seagull come out of the same factory. Rest of story is that business owned by 3 brothers who wanted their own brand so compromised with 1 factory and 3 brand names. Don't know if it true or not but have been told the story a couple of times.

Have flown a few Phoenix planes and they are ok, the Classic is a great first trainer plane. Also have a Seagull PC9 which flies very nicely. Just needed to strengthen a couple of bits of dodgy balsa in the wing. Have 4 Black horse planes, a Twister a small T28 Trojan and 2 large T28 Trojans. With the exception of the front wheel assembly on the little Trojan all are good planes that fly well. This all boils down to cost and in this hobby you get what you pay for. All planes have their pros and cons. Have friends who fly seriously expensive planes and they have trouble from time to time with the quality of the balsa or other fittings. Just depends how fussy you are and how much you want to spend.

If you talk about value for money you are getting a pretty good deal with any of these brands of aircraft.

Is that SU-31 good at 3d?

Just got done with the 40 sized sukhoi. Went together real nice!

Stick 40

I have the Super Decathlon. Was $119.00 I think. I like it ok. Flies good, lands like a dream, but doesnt hold it's tail up like a Cub, and that dissappointed me a little. It needs differential in the alerons for turns to keep the tail up, or use some rudder, but other than that it's a cool plane. Even has fancy wood trim around the windows on the inside of the fuse. Not sure why thay did that, but it looks cool. If ya do a search for "patiotruck" on you tube, you can find it flying. Look on the last couple pages, it's there.

hello,
i have a dolphin and extra 300s. i have just gotten the spitfire. i have had nothing but good experience with pheniox. thev only
thing that lacks is hardware quality and pushrods.however the spit i just recieved has metal clevises!!!.so i would not hesitate to recomend.these.the dolphin is a first class second trainer. no bad habits . takes off and lands easily.

Depends on your engine selection and flying ability.

It's not a lightweight model by any stretch. Plus the large hunk of lead they hide away in the nose to balance the too-heavy wood used aft (and lack of lighter construction back there) don't help either. And the ailerons aren't what you'd need to do 3D effectively.

BTW, the sunburst is mine. The model doesn't have that from the factory.

And the SU-31 has a couple of flaws in the instructions/mfg'ing. The picture shows one of them. The instructions lead you to use the hole in the firewall to position your motor mount. If I remember correctly, they also say there is no engine offset, yet there is both right and down thrust built into the front. And then they've positioned the hole for up thrust and right thrust. I noticed it right away and fixed mine to give a centered prop. But I've seen another that had the prop "centered" low because the builder followed the manual. It looked bad to some, others didn't notice. And the flyer didn't really do much, so I got no idea if it affected the performance.

I haven't bought another. After all, you get what you pay for. And I'd rather pay enough to get a better mfg'd model. The Phoenix 31 has what I'd consider two major design flaws. I guess the money you don't pay covers what they don't do right.

the dolphin was my first low wing taildragger. nice plane with a good instruction manual. i did have bad wing flutter though it was an easy fix. i had a o.s. 50sx on it and am now breaking in a moki 61 in it. also had a strega with a o.s. 60fx in it. nice handling plane. the only other problem i had with these planes was the weak landing gear. it was bad on both planes.

My favorite manufacturer of 40 sized planes is Phoenix. I have a Decathon, Strega and Dolphin currently in my hanger. The Strega and Dolphin are my favorites. The Strega sports a 52 Magnum and the Dolphin has a 46AX. Both fly like a dream. I've also flown the Extra and the Funstar. Both died horrible deaths due to engine failure while very close to the ground in a bad position. I've lost three Stregas one due to reversed ailerons, my fault. One due to engine troubles and one I just wore out. The current Strega has well over 100 flights on it. The Dolphin has about 20 and the Decathlon has about 5. The Decathlon being my least favorite so it's become decoration. I'm pretty sure the Decathlon has CG problems but I'm not sure what the problem is with it. The Dolphin is still being trimmed for CG. I moved the battery midway down into the tail and have added 1.5 ounces of lead to the tail. It's just almost right. I'll add 1/8th ounce next flight and call it good. It will be tail heavy so don't try this at home. Where it is now the nose just starts to drop when inverted. I was expecting a trainer when I bought the Dolphin. I just wanted something to goof around and easy fly with. It's anything but a trainer. Very fast and agile. It will hover on low rates and knife edges with ease!

Finally, Phoenix has a good line of planes. Tower only carrys a few Phoenix planes. Lets keep on them to see if they will start stocking the rest of the line

I've got the Su-31 (which is really an Su-26, which I think is sexier) with a Magnum XL 70 RFS 4 stroke. The magnum is a beast and probably more power than it needs, but it should be fun. I have yet to fly it, but I can comment on the build and quality. I have one of the much later versions bought a few months ago. They have nixed the lead plate, and cut down on some of the structure in the fuselage. It looks kinda flimsy, but it really isn't. The high stress areas have actual birch plywood, while the rest of the plane is 2 or 3 ply laminated balsa. I haven't weighed mine, but I am sure the magnum will haul it around just fine. The build quality is excellent, especially for the price. I did some taxi tests today, but didn't fly because the Kansas winds were just too crappy (flipped my Skyraider II on landing), but it has good ground handling manners and wanted to get airborne after about 70 ft at 1/2 throttle. The covering is excellent, and for the price, it can't be beat. I don't expect a 3D plane cause I am just not into that thing, but I have heard that it can be as aggressive a sport flyer as you can handle. As for the instructions, toss them. The CG is off, and it really doesn't explain much. I have had enough experience to know how to put one of these things together that it didn't bother me one bit. The control horns in mine seemed okay, but the screws were weak and I replaced about 50% of them due to stripping the heads. Mine also had metal pushrods in nylon tubes, much better than previous versions. I hope it flies as well as it looks and as well as its built. I get comments every time I take it out about how good it looks (even though I don't fly it cause the winds are sucky).

Here's a cool little story;

A friend of mine has a Phoenix Extra 300S 46. We were all out flying one day and I was spotting for an experianced flyer that hadn't flown in a number of years. The Experianced flyer was flying a HUGE hand made high wing trainer. The guy with the Phoenix Extra was up at the same time going as fast as he could. The Extra came out of nowhere and zipped right through the trainer sending up a cloud of kindling. Through the cloud of kindling comes the Phoenix Extra, motor was dead and the canopy was dangling as it landed perfectly. There was nothing left of the trainer, everything but a couple servos and the motor was trashed. There wasn't a scratch on the Phoenix other than the canopy and a broken prop.

I wouldn't try this at home, it may not work a second time....